Executscan Expected more

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

mark.waltz Long before her days as the noble but strong willed Miss Ellie on "Dallas" and with a stage career not yet legendary, Barbara Bel Geddes scored brief success in films. She scored an Oscar nomination as the "I" who "Remembered Mama" and got all tough with Robert Mitchum in this film noir western. When first seen, she's shooting at Mitchum, purposely missing but with intent of scaring him away. He shoots back, basically knocking her down, but when next seen, she knocks the hat off his head with a single shot, leaving him hiding the fact that he's petrified. Obviously, there are sparks, but Bel Geddes won't be putting down her rifle anytime soon as she deals with the corruption of fear mongering Robert Preston who uses Mitchum in his scheme to forge locales to sell him their cattle.While plots like this have turned up in westerns ever since the creation of the genre, never had it been done with such a psychological darkness. Film noir had been around for a few years and elements of the darkness at dawn under a western moon were turning up in westerns, most notably in "Pursued", a western thriller that Mitchum had made the year before. Robert Wise, a former film editor who added noir elements into the horror genre, now did the same thing here, and the results are successful, if not completely satisfying. Shadows in the snow this could have been called, with Preston a very subtle villain and Tom Tully and Phyllis Thaxter are very good as the father and sister whom Bel Geddes has toughened up to protect. Walter Brennan is also aboard as a local wise man who provides a moral guide for the developers characters.So how does, exactly, a standard western plot become film noir? The psychological degradation of seemingly decent characters, others having to take steps to bring the evil forces down by reaching into their own psyche, and anti-heroes who keep so much inside. Moody photography, a screenplay that goes deeper into the darkness inside all mankind, and a direction that moves the camera around like it was reading everybody's minds and often became the standing replacement where a character was speaking from. This genre hit its height with "The Furies" two years later, but "Blood on the Sun" successfully reveals the important elements that make film noir tick, western or not, and would be a great guide to filmmakers of the future.

Mikel3 'Blood on the Moon' (1948) mini-review - It still surprises me that after all these decades I'm still finding great old movies I've never seen before. Today on TCM there was an excellent western on called 'Blood on the Moon'. Somehow I'd never seen it. I will now add this to my list of favorite all time westerns. Robert Mitchum was in top tough guy form here. Walter Brennan was excellent as always. Mr. Brennan especially impressed me in one scene where he gets some terrible news. He expresses so much in that moment with just his face and no words. Barbara Bel Geddes was also impressive as a tough woman who stands up as a match for Mitchum. The direction by Robert Wise and Lillie Hayward's screenplay were top notch too. If I had one compliant it's that Robert Michum's character sure recovers fast from a serious injury...oh it's just a knife wound to the chest put a few herbs on it and I'll be good as new in an hour or two. Still if you love westerns I highly recommend this one.

dougdoepke Ace oater, moody, atmospheric, with an ambivalent "hero", a charming villain, and unsteady alliances. Actually, the movie's about as close to a noir western as I've seen. Most scenes are etched in shadow, and even the picturesque Sedona shots are beautifully framed in deep b&w. Then too, Mitchum's Jim Garry is a rather mysterious figure riding onto the scene. Is he a gunslinger or not. It seems neither he nor the script can make up its mind, which is well and good since the ambiguity fits right into the murky background. And check out that great noirish opening around the rancher's campground that richly foreshadows what's to come.So is Garry going to partner up with the likable crook Tate Riling (Preston) or not. On one side, they've been buddies in the past; on the other, are the ranchers who stand to lose their grazing land if Tate's scheme works. Course, it doesn't hurt that rancher Lufton (Tully) has a comely daughter (Bel Geddes) to balance the scales. So probably you can figure the outcome, but you may need a scorecard since there are a lot of characters moving in and out of the story. My only complaint is how quickly the knife wounded Garry goes from bed to able- bodied gunman. Looks like both director Wise and actor Mitchum forgot to mimic at least some effects of a serious knife wound. Oh well, it is Hollywood, after all.Anyway, the movie remains an ace western from RKO during its late 40's peak, when noir looks like it crept into everything the studio shot.

chaos-rampant You can see the film noir lurking behind the western in this western noir in the first plot twist. Behind the facade of a typical western conflict between cattle owners and homesteaders lies a distinctly noirish crime setup, "the big con", and yet it's exactly that kind of inconistency that prevents BLOOD ON THE MOON from reaching the greatness parts of it faintly suggest. Because the conflict foreshadowed in the first act between cattle baron (usually the bad guy in a western) and the conniving leader of the homesteaders is abandoned in the third act so Robert Mitchum's drifter character can hole up in Walter Brennan's shack and exchange shots with the hired guns of his former employer. Because the perenial world-weariness of Mitchum's droopy face is undercut by a Hollywood ending where everything is tied up neatly with a ribbon on top. We're still in good guys/bad guys territory and director Robert Wise opens his cards about who's what way too early, so that the rest of the film and the promise of the good first 30 minutes is squandered in people running hither and thither, to do this or that or prevent those from happening. Gorgeously photographed and watchable throughout, but more of a missed chance than the bonafide western noir classic it should have been.